This study is important reading for anyone interested in understanding the emergence of neuroscience in support of unhealthy learning, maladaptive schema, and Mind-Shame. Absent from the article are two critical distinctions:
1) Math Anxiety is a form of Mind-Shame. Anxiety is fear and, in the relation math, it is a fear of failing to perform. Fear of Failure is generally considered to be our number one fear. Fear of failure is unlike fear of snakes or other forms of immediate physical dangers, it is a fear of SHAME. Math anxiety is a fear of shame that functions like the reading related mind-shame we’ve described as the ‘downward spiral of shame’. Mind-Shame (math anxiety) occupies attention distracting and diminishing the brain’s capacity to do the (math) processing and thus feeds into a downward spiral of: more shame>>diminished capacity to perform>>more shame.
2) Math Anxiety is learned. Though there may be some small percent of the population that has innate neurobiologically ordained dyscalulia, the great majority of people who suffer from math anxiety are suffering because their learning environments (early childhood trajectory into and through school) inadequately conducted their learning into math.
DOWNWARD SPIRAL OF SHAME (reading)
Thanks to R. Fanning for sharing this study with us.
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